DENVER–Earlier this year, the Democrat-controlled legislature and Governor Polis signed Colorado on to the National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact, but retired law professor and widely cited constitutional scholar Rob Natelson thinks the NPV is misnamed. “The compact should be called National Plurality Vote,” wrote Natelson in a Complete Colorado opinion piece. “Under its terms, if states with 270 presidential electors ratify, then each subscribing state will yield its electoral votes to whomever wins a national plurality— not necessarily a majority.”
It’s for this, and other reasons, that Natelson compares the NPV system that advocates want to impose in the U.S. to similar third world voting systems. His most recent example is Panama’s May 5 presidential election, where the winner in a fractured field got a bare 33 percent of the popular vote. “That means that two-thirds of voters voted against this guy, and they got him, that’s what National Popular Vote does,” notes Natelson.
Natelson recently sat down with host Jon Caldara on the public affairs tv show Devil’s Advocate (airs Friday nights at 8:30 on Colorado Public Television) to explain how the NPV imports a third world voting system into the United States. He also briefly discusses a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision that reins in excessive fines. That video is below and is well worth the time.